Swing Voters: Still Not Into the Anti-Woke Stuff
Plus: Tearing Down Art to Spare Republican Snowflakes’ Feelings?
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RICH THAU: Swing Voters: Still Not Into the Anti-Woke Stuff.
“Anti-woke” politics don’t seem to be working with swing-voters.
In January, I wrote about the confusion over the term “woke” in focus groups with Trump-to-Biden Florida voters.
We found that these moderate constituents of Gov. Ron DeSantis were “meh” on his declaration that “Florida is where woke goes to die.” They weren’t paying much attention, and when shown videos of what he had been saying on the topic, didn’t respond well to his attacking large corporations over “wokeness.”
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BILL LUEDERS: Tearing Down Art to Spare Republican Snowflakes’ Feelings?
Marty Brooks is evidently not the literary type. The CEO and president of the Wisconsin Center District, a governmental body that runs a tax-funded convention center in Milwaukee, unilaterally decided to tear down a literary art installation as part of a $456 million expansion of the facility in advance of its use during the Republican National Convention in July 2024.
The installation by sculptor Jill Sebastian, created in 1998 when the Wisconsin Center was built, features texts spanning four centuries from a diverse group of 48 Wisconsinites. Included are lyrics from an Ojibwe tribe song, indigenous voices Black Sparrow Hawk and Mountain Wolf Woman, and writers Aldo Leopold, Carl Sandburg, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Edna Ferber, John Muir, Lorine Niedecker, Susan Engberg, Zona Gale, Larry Watson, Antler, James Hazard, Folami Abiade, Kyoko Mori, and Lorrie Moore, among others.
CATHY YOUNG: Russians Told to Man Up: The Meat Grinder of War Awaits.
Last December, a brief controversy flared up around a Russian military recruitment ad featuring a sad-eyed, destitute grandpa about to sell his Lada before he is rescued by his grandson signing a contract for army service. The clip was so appalling that pro-war Russian bloggers tried to blame it on Ukrainian psy-ops. In fact, it was real and part of a series of social media ads in which military service was portrayed as the answer to various poverty-related problems (from being threatened by loan sharks to being stuck living with obnoxious in-laws). But that was, at least, a campaign from an obscure advertising agency that was quickly shut down once it drew a backlash. Russia’s latest appalling ad urging men to volunteer—and, it’s unsubtly implied, to serve on the frontlines in Ukraine—comes from the Russian Ministry of Defense itself.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Tuesday! I hope you’re enjoying the perfect date. As we learn more about the end of Tucker’s reign at Fox, the more one thinks the writers of Succession aren’t as imaginative as reality itself. As Tom Gara quips: “It turns out that your boss's girlfriend considering you one of God's prophets can also have its downsides.”
Lordy there are (90) tapes… The Tucker / Grossman suit continues apace.
What the Hanssen investigation… Can tell us about the Discord leaker.
Nicolas Cage gets… The 60 Minutes treatment.
Don Lemon… And the Vivek segment and what’s wrong with cable.
Bernie… Endorses Biden.
“I asked ChatGPT… to tell me where to eat for a week.” Worst/best idea ever?
Back home in Cleveland… The Shaker Shul Showdown is over, but a rare case of voter fraud has come to light. Can you guess if this denizen of uber-liberal Shaker Heights cast two votes for Donald Trump or Joe Biden?
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's Counteroffensive News. Tim is headed back to Ukraine to give you on the ground details from Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive. Formerly of NPR, Tim is a U.S. Army combat medic and somebody we at the Bulwark have known for years. Tim is one of the best people in this business, and he is a fantastic reporter. (He once worked across the hall from us!) If it’s not in your media budget, I get it, but it should be! So if not, sign up for the free updates.
🎵 Song of the day— Running out of Hope, Arkansas by Brennen Leigh. h/t Gwen Moritz
How VHS beat Beta… An interesting deep dive from Phil Edwards of Vox (on his own free time.)
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